


Sabbath

by ButterflyGhost



Category: due South
Genre: Angst, Gen, back story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 09:44:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2187027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser remembers his mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sabbath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The Moo](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=The+Moo).
  * Inspired by [So the Evening and the Morning were the First Day (Genesis 1:5)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/759884) by [ButterflyGhost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost), [Ride_Forever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ride_Forever/pseuds/Ride_Forever). 



> I wrote this ages ago for you, Moo - and now you are here and get to see it! Welcome to AO3. :)

It’s stupid of me, after all these years, to remember it. It is not like she ever made a big thing of it, after all. She’d simply light a candle in the window, on a Friday just before nightfall, and that was it. That was all the fuss. The fire would be carefully banked, the soup or stew would be prepared – no vegetables to chop, no water to draw or melt, no work to be done. Just a regular little island of happiness, when we had to do nothing, but smile, and eat, and talk with each other, and play.

 

Who would have thought that having no duties could be so joyful? I seem to have lost the art of that, or the gift of it. Sabbath. It has been centuries since I enjoyed a Sabbath. I loved our little holidays, though I didn’t know that’s what they were. It was simply part of the pulse of our life. Once weekly we would snuggle, and do nothing, other than giggle, and tell stories, cuddle the dogs.

 

After she – I can say it now – after she died, and I went to my grandparents’, I would light a candle at dusk, sometimes. Oh, but I was very small, and didn’t know what it was for. Simply that it reminded me of her. I didn’t even know to light it on a Friday. But some nights I would look out the window, and see the dusk steal down, blue across the snow, and I would think _, ‘we used to snuggle on nights like this.’_ So, I would light a candle in the window for her, and pray. At first my Grandparents didn’t realise why I was doing it. I used to whisper it so quietly under my breath.  _Ye'simcha Elohim ke-_ _Ephraim_ _ve hee-Menashe._ I didn’t know what it meant. It was just a Mother thing to say.

 

One day my Grandfather heard it. He wasn’t cross. I remember that he kissed my head – a kiss was rare – and told me that I was a Christian now. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. I still don’t. They sat me down, and there was a big discussion, in which everything went over my head. As I said – I was very small. I didn’t understand a thing. They told me to be proud of my ‘heritage’, that Jesus was a Jew, but that I had a big commitment coming up soon. And I remember – well, of course the communion, in which the wafer tasted like nothing more than blotting paper, but more than that, my first confession, the night before. I was very confused, because I couldn’t think of any sins to confess, except for the big one, which the priest did not believe.

 

“Son, you didn’t kill your mother.”

 

Why did he call me 'Son,' when he was clearly not my father? And why didn’t he understand that she was gone, and I should have protected her?

 

A thousand years later, I am standing at a window, and another woman I failed to protect is gone. My father, finally, is standing by me, but he still does not understand. I try to explain to him… I need. I need… I need her to come home. I don’t even know who anymore. I just need not to be alone.

 

And I have all the candles lit. But nobody comes home. 


End file.
